BASEBALL FOR LIFE >> Former Brooklyn Dodger minor leaguer now security supervisor for Colorado Rockies

Jimmy PattersonMidland Reporter-Telegram

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, March 10, 2008

Editor's Note:Jimmy Patterson andJack Marrion are in Arizona this week covering Major League Spring Training.

By Jimmy Patterson

Online Editor

TUCSON, Ariz. - Branch Rickey signed Howard Weese to a minor league contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization as soon as Weese graduated from high school. Dispatched to Zanesville, Ohio, where he played in something called a state league, Weese admits to being amid a group of baseball prospects that were "way better than I." Despite being given the opportunity to come back for a second try in the spring of '46, Weese shoved his cleats in an old shoe box, put them in the top of his closet and enrolled in college.

Weese, who would one day be instrumental in bringing Colorado Rockies baseball to Denver, may have left the baseball field. But baseball never left him. As a community volunteer, Weese, a former condominium converter in Denver who transformed apartments into condos, was officially put on the Rockies payroll in 1995. Eighty-one times a year, Weese walks all five levels at Coors Field, unlocking every door with security keys before the Rockies fans begin pouring in for home games.

The left field and club level security supervisor at Coors also is a security supervisor each spring when the Rockies move their operation to the Cactus League in Tucson.

Not bad for someone who will be 80 in two weeks.

"I've got a motto," Weese said Monday. "I've never gone to work for the Rockies a day in my life."

It's easy to see Weese loves what he does. He relishes the interaction with the players, a team he says is filled up and down with decent, good people from front office to No. 9 hitter and beyond.

Weese said when he was in his one season in the Dodger organization, he didn't even know how to spell steroids, much less recognize them. Not that there was anything to recognize. The human growth drug was non-existent in his days. This from a man who once had dinner and personally knew Mickey Mantle, one of the greatest sluggers of all time, a talent that was formed entirely on natural ability.

Weese said he's confident Major League Baseball's new drug policy will turn the tide on illegal substance use.

"I was surprised about two weeks ago. I came to work and there was a nine-page document waiting for me (the league's new drug policy) and I was asked to read it and sign it before I came to work," he said. "I'm almost 80 years old, I know nothing about drugs. I don't even know how to spell drugs."

Weese said he feels the game's drug policy is 12-15 years too late, saying it should have been enacted when there was just a rumor of a performance enhancement drug problem.

"It's been really terrible for the game," he said. "If they would have put it in back then, we would not be in the situation we're in today."

Weese said the Rockies' camaraderie will bind them together again this year, a togetherness that heightens their appeal among their fan base.

In 2006, a USA Today article referred to the Rockies' as having the most number of Christian players on the team and while that may almost certainly be unmeasurable, there's no doubt the team is possessed of intangibles that are working.

"I think with the caliber of mentality that this ball club has they have every possibility of repeating, or at least being close." Last year, the Rockies advanced to the World Series before losing in four straight to the Boston Red Sox.

As for Weese, his baseball playing career may have ended more than five decades ago, and he may soon be approaching his octogenarian decade, but he shows no signs of slowing down.

"I just got married January 19," he said. "To another 80-year-old. We've lived together for 13 years and she and I finally decided to tie the knot. And you can put that in your newspaper."